WoD:Viscount Alexander Morgan Westmoreland Vandervort the Third
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Lord Alexander Morgan Westmoreland Vandervort the Third, Viscount of Morpeth
Eurasian male, vampire, 38 years old, 6'2" and 195 lbs
Overview
Both parents are still alive. His father, the Earl of Carlisle in England, is from one of the oldest noble families and owns about one third of the land in Cumbria and Northumberland counties. His mother is ethnically Chinese and was born in Hong Kong. She inherited her family's expansive shipping business there. They met and married while his father was in Hong Kong, partly because it was a good financial union.
Alexander was born in Hong Kong in 1987, before the handoff of Hong Kong back to China. As such, being also ethnically (part-)Chinese, he is both a Chinese citizen and a UK citizen. He is currently living in Seattle and is about to get his US citizenship courtesy of a green card via the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program.
Alexander's Viscount of Morpeth title is a courtesy title, since he is the heir to the Earl title.
| Kindred | |
| Generation: 12th | Blood Potency: 1 |
| Predator: Consensualist | Clan: Banu Haqim |
| Humanity: 8 | |
| Disciplines: Obfuscate (2), Blood Sorcery (1), Auspex (1) | |
| Thrall | |
| Discipline: Obfuscate | Humanity: 7 |
Family and its Wealth
Naworth Castle, the ancestral seat of the family since 1323, is still privately held by the familyWhile not overly amorous, Alexander's (Alistair?) parents staunchly support each other and the family, which means everything to them. They met in 1984 when his father stayed in Hong Kong, on-and-off, for 8 years. The Sino-British Joint Declaration had just been signed, and the Earl decided that it would be best to liquidate the family's assets in that region. The marriage with Alexander's mother was based on it being a sound financial decision for both of them, rather than out of love, as she had just inherited her family's shipping business. In the next few years they conceived both Alexander and his sister there. The family eventually sold off the shipping business and moved back to England, rightfully recognizing that Hong Kong would not be able to compete with Shanghai as the main port of China.
The family's assets are mostly in leaseholds, which is a concept that dates back to feudal times. In England, among many other places, freehold is the most comprehensive form of land ownership, granting perpetual ownership of land and buildings, while leasehold involves owning the right to use a property for a limited period of time (such as 99 years), after which ownership of the land reverts to the freeholder. The Westmoreland Vandervort family owns about one third of the land in Cumbria and Northumberland counties.
The family had at one time owned a few companies in Hong Kong, most notably Dent Vandervort & Co. Major British mercantile companies known as "hongs" dominated Hong Kong during the 1800s, especially after the colony was ceded to Britain in 1842. Founded before Hong Kong's establishment, Dent Vandervort & Co. was known as the second largest British trading company in East Asia. The company bought one of the first plots of land at Hong Kong's initial land sale in 1841 and opened its headquarters there in 1844. Like other "hongs", this company initially focused on the China trade and then from there expanded into finance, shipping, insurance, and real estate. Subsidiary firms were created to manage each of these areas of businesses.
In 1861 William Vandervort and his associates were pushed out of the main business, which was then renamed to just Dent & Co or just Dent's, and instead spun off the real estate subsdiary into its own independent business.
... skip 150 years...
That influx of cash ...